About This Guide

Plesk for Linux Advanced Administration Guide is a companion guide for the Plesk Administrator's Guide. It is intended for server administrators whose responsibilities include maintaining hosting servers and troubleshooting server software problems.

The guide provides step-by-step instructions for performing server management tasks that require use of Plesk functionality other than the GUI and GUI-only tasks that administrators may need to perform only in rare and specific situations. Administrators can use several additional tools that are supplied in the standard Plesk distribution package to add customized automation tasks, back up and restore data, and repair Plesk components and system settings. The tools include a number of standalone applications, command-line utilities, and the ability to integrate custom scripting with Plesk.

This guide contains the following chapters:

Introduction to Plesk. Describes the main components and services operated by Plesk, licensing terms, and the ways to install and update Plesk components.

Virtual Hosts Configuration. Describes virtual host concepts and their implementation in Plesk. Provides instructions on why and how to change their configuration.

Services Management. Contains descriptions of a number of external services used on Plesk server and instructions on how to configure and use them.

System Maintenance. Describes how to change the server host name, IP addresses, and locations of directories for storing virtual host files, backups, and mail content. This chapter also introduces Plesk's command-line tools, a mechanism for running scripts on Plesk events, and the service monitor that allows monitoring and restarting of services without logging in to Plesk.

Backing Up, Restoring, and Migrating Data. Describes how to back up and restore Plesk data by means of the command-line utilities pleskbackup and pleskrestore, and introduces the tools for migrating hosted data between servers.

Statistics and Logs. Describes how to run on demand statistics calculations on disk space and traffic usage, and access web server logs.

Enhancing Performance. Provides information on how to improve Plesk functioning by means of software.

Enhancing Security. Provides instructions on how to protect the Plesk server and sites hosted on it from unauthorized access.

Customizing Plesk Appearance and GUI Elements. Introduces Plesk themes that can be used to customize Plesk appearance and branding and describes how to remove specific elements of the Plesk GUI or change their behavior.

Localization. Introduces the methods of localizing the Plesk GUI into languages for which Plesk does not provide localization.

Troubleshooting. Describes how to troubleshoot malfunctions of Plesk services.